At the Gates of Madness

by Shaun Meeks

  I looked back at the foamy water, the two naked bodies disappearing under its green surface that rippled with moonlight and tried not to think about the stories my granddaddy use to tell me about the things that lives under the water. I wanted nothing more than to walk away from the three of them, but how could I without coming off as a scared child. There was little to do but to strip down as well and get into the water that I had steered clear of for years, or else when school re-opened in a month and a bit, I would be an outcast and a joke, the little sissy too afraid to go into the lake with two naked girls. The thought of people going around saying I was gay, or had a small dick, having others pick on me the way they picked on the losers in the chess club made it so I only had one option. I wonder now how many bad choices people make in their lives during their school years just to avoid being made fun of or becoming an outcast.

  I began to take my clothes off, trying not to look at the water or think of my granddaddy’s words, the stories he would tell me of things that lived in the lake caves, of creatures that swam in it, beings that he claimed were older than mankind and always looking to feed. He told me that the foam that covered the edges of the lake was the waste from the ancient, unseen things, and that it held diseases that would rot the skin off a man’s body. He told me a story of how a friend of his years before my father was even born, had jumped into the foam, laughing as though it was bubble bath. He looked straight into my face as he described the screams that ripped through the air as the boy’s skin boiled off his bones.

  I’m rinsing my mouth out again, but it is doing nothing for me. I might be stupid enough to think that this horrible taste in my mouth is strictly from the filth and film in the water, but I’m not that dumb. I want nothing more to convince myself that I caught some parasite from the lake, some microscopic bug crawled into my mouth and maybe laid its eggs inside of me, and now I was the host of growing worms or something that looked like giant maggots. I was never a stellar student, the honor role was not somewhere my name would ever appear, but I am not a fool either. I know what I saw and know what is really wrong with me.

  After stripping down to nothing but my birthday suit, trying to have a bit of shame, I covered my goods from Diana and headed towards the water where the other two were already making out not far from shore. Diana gave me a smile and took off her bra and threw it down on top of her other cloths, then followed suit with her panties. The thought of the dangers in the water evaporated almost at once as I looked at her pale and perky tits, seeing a well maintained patch of pubic hair before she turned from me and ran to the lake. Hoping to get a chance to feel her breasts against me, to taste her skin and touch that soft, forbidden hair, I ran after her and jumped in the lake.

  When I was six, my granddaddy took me down there for what I thought was going to be a fishing trip, but it turned into a story and a lecture. Sometimes when old people talk, it’s just to hear themselves speak, or in some cases I think they are re-telling some old story for fear if they don’t repeat the same thing a thousand times their feeble minds will devour the memory completely. My granddaddy wasn’t like that though, he was far from feeble and seemed more the type to sit and listen, or ponder silently to himself than to go on about some faked past. Most days you could find him sitting on the porch with his unlit pipe dangling from his mouth while he sat back in his rocker staring wistfully at the sky.

  When we went to the lake, my hopes high for catching a big old bass that my mom and dad would be proud of, one we could gut and eat for dinner that night. We stood on the riverbank and looked across the water, the sun shining off the surface, glittering like a jewel.

  “You know why we’re here, don’t you?”

  “Fishin’!” I said with glee, having never been allowed to come down to the lake alone or with anyone else before. Normally, when my dad took me fishing, it was on a trip further up north, near the Hudson’s Bay. The lake was less than a ten minute walk from where we lived, but that day was the first time I had ever seen it.

  “There’s no fishing to be done here. No fish live in these waters that you’d ever want to catch. What lives in there doesn’t get caught, it catches you.”

  “Then why did we come here?”

  “Cause you need to know about this lake. Your mom and dad are too silly in the head or scared to tell you the truth, but I ain’t. You may just be a boy, but you’re damn well old enough to hear some truth. This lake here is home of the devil, or what we would call the devil, but to tell you the truth, I think it’s older than that. People will tell you all the time that monsters aren’t real, that there is no devil, but that ain’t nothing but a load of shit, pardon my French. I know it’s a lie, because I know what is in this lake.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s everything that is wrong with the world, a legion of evil and hate that has been here since the world was young. I saw a glimpse of it once, a multitude of heads and snake like arms cover in little claws and suckers to pull you down to eat whoever steps in. I only saw one of them, some fools call it Simcoe Sally and claim it’s like the Loch Ness Monster, but what I saw was nothing of the sorts. Best way I can tell you is that it looked like a hundred octopus came together to make one giant beast.”

  As he told me this, I looked out into the water, it’s dark green surface glimmering from the sun, make the darkness below even more mysterious. I never doubted what he was saying, able to picture some horribly cancerous creature moving beneath the water as he spoke, hearing the fear crackle in his voice as he told me about seeing the monster come from below.

  The story he told, remained with me, and I steered clear of the lake as best I could. When friends said they were going to go swimming I always told them I had something else to do. When they wanted to go fishing, I made up being grounded for taking money from my mom’s purse. I wanted to tell others about what my granddaddy had told me, wanted to warn them as I had been, but I knew one of two things would happen. They would either laugh at me or call me an idiot, or the story would make them even more curious and they would go to the lake in search of what ever lived in the water. People already talked about Simcoe Sally, or Igopogo to some, and people in town went to the lake on the regular to see if the creature would show its face, to get a glimpse of the beast the lived beneath them. If I told kids that I went to school with the same story as my granddaddy had told me, I feared many more would go to the lake to see a vision of a true monster. How many would die if they went in there knowing what they were looking for? I didn’t want to be the cause of anyone’s death, so I shut my mouth and steered clear of Lake Simcoe as best I could.

  That was until I let my dick and fear of being made fun of get the better of me and went skinny-dipping with the others.

  When I went into the water, jumping far enough out so that my feet didn’t touch the foam on the edge of the bank, I tried not to think about the story my granddaddy told me. I thought of being near Diana’s naked body instead of the nightmare images that would seep into my head every night I would lay in bed trying to go to sleep. The images of hundreds of tentacled arms moving through the dark waters in search of a warm body to wrap itself around haunted my sleeping nights and when my body hit the water, the cold shocking my system as I went under, the images returned. I went under the water, pitch black like outer space and was sure that I would see monsters arms floating towards me, moving as though they were floating moving with no sense of gravity. I told myself not to be a chicken, that maybe my granddaddy was wrong, maybe he had just told me the story and I bought into the foolishness of it. I mean, how many of my friends had some to the lake year after year, swimming and fishing and none of them had made claims of some tentacled creature lurking in the shadows below them.

  Still, after years of believing what my granddaddy told me, it was hard not to think about the possibilities.

  “Why you so far out?” Diana called to me and I turned to see that I was about ten feet away from her and more than twenty away from th
e shore. She was smiling at me and I swam to her feeling foolish.

  “Thought you might want to come and catch me.”

  “You should catch me.” She laughed and I started to feel better, thinking more about her naked body under the water than anything else.

  “You come out here to the lake a lot?” I asked her, and she nodded.

  “Not like this, but sure. My sis comes down here with me and we go swimming. Why?”

  I shook my head as though it was nothing, but it was something alright. For years I had denied myself any kind of fun at the lake because I had been told some silly story about Simcoe Sally and I had bought into it. I swam to her, trying not to let it show on my face that I was ashamed at myself for being one of those guys that buys into the lame ass tales that old people tell, ones that are so far out there, only an idiot believes them.

  I was that idiot.

  Brushing my teeth again for the eighth time in an hour though, I know I really wasn’t an idiot, that my granddaddy was telling me the truth, something that nobody else ever did. My gums are raw and bleeding now, and I can still taste that horribleness there, bleeding through the winter fresh flavor. I want nothing more than to get this taste out of my mouth, ripping the damn toothbrush on my teeth, gum, gums and the roof of my mouth, but it doesn’t help. Chewing gum does nothing, mouth wash the same, mouth continues to taste as though I have eaten an entire bag of shit.

  My skin isn’t looking too good either; usually I am tanned, but have gone from pale to a grayish color lately, almost to the point of being translucent. I can easily see the blue veins pulsing beneath the skin and I wonder what else other than blood is in there, moving around and growing. Downstairs my mom is cooking a breakfast I won’t be able to eat, food just makes the taste in my mouth worse and I worry that soon she is going to ask why I look so sick. Hopefully she will just think that I am doing drugs, small towns like the one I live in are a mess with kids and adults getting hooked on crystal meth, I hope she’ll just assume that’s what I’m involved in. Luckily my granddaddy died just over five years ago or I’m sure he would know what’s going on with me, more so than even I know myself.

  In the last ten minutes I have used half a tube of toothpaste and now I’m just pouring it directly into my mouth, but I know it’s not going to help. Nothing will help any more, it’s just a matter of time when everything falls apart, that I find out just how far this will all go. I know that this will end badly; it’s all I have been able to think about since coming back from the lake, what has kept me awake night after night. Before, it was the thought of what could be below the water that haunted me and filled me with dread, now it’s knowing that does it.

  When I swam over to Diana, she pulled me close to her, surprised by the warmth of her body in the cold water, and the shocking feel of her pubic hair against my cock. I tried to control the way it made me feel, but found myself hardening with anticipation. She smiled as she felt what was happening and pressed her mouth to mine, hard yet gentle. I kissed her back, standing on my tip toes, not thinking about Simcoe Sally or the way the mud ground squished between my digits. I didn’t have that much experience with girls, being as shy as I am from being a bit overweight, but I fought the nervous butterflies that were slam dancing in my stomach and just went with it. I heard Tom yell something out to me, as though he was cheering me on, calling my name and what not. I ignored him and Jenny, losing myself in the moment, all my fears and worries had evaporated and I felt amazing, Diana feeling even better against me. She was so beautiful, more so at that moment than ever before. I could smell her shampoo and her skin, even over the strong odor of the lake and I knew I would never forget it, that it would be one of those memories that would live on in my spank bank for years to come.

  Now, I never want to think of that moment again.

  Diana pulled back a bit, smiling and biting her lower lip.

  “Wow, you are a great kisser. Lots of practice I guess?”

  I shook my head. Unless she counted the times I sat around at home alone while everyone I knew was down at the lake partying, making out with my own hand, talking to it and honing my skill, I had no real experience at all.

  “You could have fooled me.” She moved in again as though to kiss me and I was ready, but noticed a change in her face. She looked around and I joined her, not knowing what she was looking for exactly, then, as she spoke, I realized it too. “Where are Tom and Jenny? Guys? Hey where did you guys go?”

  I looked around too, to the area I had seen them last and heard Tom calling out to me from. It hadn’t been more than a minute or two since I had heard him, but now they were both gone.

  “Maybe they went into the woods to get some privacy.” I said, but already I was thinking that it was something worse, images of the way my granddaddy had described the Igopogo swarmed my mind and I wanted nothing more than to get out of the water. I looked down at the dark surface; everything below was as black as the night sky above and I felt panic seeping in. “We should get out of the water though, just in case.”

  “Just in case what? Hey if they got out to get some privacy, that means we have some too.”

  “I just think I’d be better to find them.”

  “Why? Don’t you think I’m hot? You don’t want me?”

  She reached down and took me in her hand and I closed my eyes at the sensation. It was the first time in my life that anyone had touched me there, other than myself and I quaked all over, shuddering at the exhilaration I was feeling. I leaned my head back as she moved her hand back and forth.

  “Oh.” Was all I heard her say, and then she stopped moving her hand and I waited a second, thinking there was going to be more, than maybe something other than her hand was going to wrap around me. When nothing more happened, I opened my eyes and found I was in the lake alone; Diana was nowhere to be seen.

  I moved around, feeling under the water for her and calling out her name. I thought they were all having me on, that the three of them were playing some joke on me, having figured out all along that I was scared of the lake and they were playing me for a fool. I yelled out all three of their names, cupping my hands over my mouth to amplify my voice. It was when I lifted my hands from the water that I saw it. Igopogo.

  I’m looking at my hands now, the same as I had looked at them in the water. They look different now, but I see them changing to where they were when I stood in the lake. My whole body seems to be shifting, growing into something more than I am. At first, I wasn’t sure what to think about everything that has happened in the lake and to me, but over the last two weeks, I have been able to piece things together.

  Standing in the water alone, I looked down at my hands and what I saw didn’t belong to me. My skin was slick and glimmered, reflecting the moons light of what appeared to be scales. My arms pulsed in waves down to where my hands had been. What was there instead of the same hands I had once used to write, play catch, jerk off and do numerous other mundane things, were no longer my hands at all. My arms lead down to what had haunted me in my dreams for years since my granddaddy had told me not to go into the lake, told me of some creature that lived under the lake since time out of mind. I looked at down at arms that had become tentacles and felt a scream building in my throat. I moved through the water towards the shore and heard movement behind me in the water. Spinning, I saw shadowed movement on the horizon and heard an alien voice call out.

  That was all I could take. I ran through the water faster than should have been possible, moving through the thick foam on the bank of the lake. I ran up the rocks, looking down at my naked body and saw that the same change that had happened to my arm had not been confined to them. My legs also looked as though they had changed into some alien appendages, though the further I moved away from the water my body seemed to be returning the way it had always been. I prayed to God that this was all some horrible nightmare, that my friends were playing some lame ass joke on me and that my prior fears were getting the better of me. I picked
my clothes up and ran back home naked, not caring if anyone saw me, I just wanted to get away from the lake.

  Now I see what is going on, what has been going on all along. My friends are dead. Tom. Jenny. Diana. They’re all dead and at first I thought that it was something in the water that had killed them and that whatever it was that had done it had infected me. I thought of the creature that my granddaddy had described, that it had moved near us, pulling my friends down into the darkness with it, and somehow poisoning me, making me think I had tentacles and had me seeing things. I was a fool to think that things were so simple, so easy to be put together, but it’s no wonder I thought that way. My granddaddy filled my head full of thoughts and images of what I came to believe were true, nightmares that seemed impossible, but made sense after that swim in the lake. Seeing them die, seeing my arms changing into the arms of a cephalopod, it was no wonder that I thought those stories were true and that something in the water had infected me, was making me see things and causing that horrible taste in my mouth that toothpaste and mouthwash could never fix.

  I was a fool to listen to him though, to think that what he said was true. Now, when I step out of the house, I hear the lake calling out to me, my name carried on the wind like the whispers of a lover trying to coax me back into bed with her and I want to go so bad. I want to go, because I know that is where I belong, where I have always needed to be. I don’t know when it was that I came to realize that what my granddaddy had told me was a lie, whether it was the second I stepped in the lake, as I stepped out, or when I looked at myself in the mirror and saw who I really am, but I know these things as fact now, know them because they are engrained into my every fiber.